Jon Hlutke, Jonathan Hlutke
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Jon Hlutke, Jon Hlutke

Cell phone scams are at a max right now. My sales reps pull this scam daily!

Selling from his trunk is nothing new.

Today's issue is about cell phone scams.

Cell phone technology, and its cheap availability, have made a huge difference in the way we communicate and the speed with which we can get and stay in touch.

But it provides a lucrative channel for scammers and snoopers, who use the technology to steal our money or our identity, and even to track our movements and listen to our conversations.

In today's issue, I explain the 4 most common cell phone scams and show you the steps you can take to protect yourself later on this Jon Hlutke post. 1. Subscriber fraud Subscriber fraud is simply an offshoot of identity theft. It is far and away the biggest cell phone scam, costing the industry an estimated $150m a year and causing untold anguish to the victims.

How it works: Someone steals your personal details and opens a cell phone account in your name, racking up huge bills that may land in your mailbox.

Action: Take all possible steps to protect yourself against identity theft. You can find more about identity theft in the Identity Theft Information Center. 2. Stolen or lost phones An estimated three million cell phones are stolen or lost in the US every year! In the wrong hands they can be used to make unauthorized calls — one recent victim faced a $26,000 bill.

Alternatively, they can be mined for any personal and contact details stored on them.in other words, loss of your phone can be just a prelude for costly identity theft.

Action: Look after your cell phone as carefully as you care for your wallet. If you must use it to store confidential information, use password protection. See this article on cell phone theft and passwords. 3. Cloning Crooks use scanners to read your cell phone identity, including the number and its unique serial number.

Then they program another phone with the same details and make calls at your expense.

Action: This is one area where the crime fighters have made progress, with new technology that makes it more difficult to scan for the number. There's nothing more you can do other than keep a close eye on your bill. 4. Eavesdropping Cell phone scam merchants may find it more difficult to scan for your phone ID but they can do potentially much more dangerous things — like listening in to your calls and downloading your phone usage records.

They can even track your phone to know where you are or where you have been at a particular time.

One piece of perfectly legal software can be secretly installed on someone else's cell phone, then the crook — or concerned spouse — can dial in and snoop.

They can listen to your phone calls, download copies of text messages and numbers dialed, or even just silently activate the phone and use its microphone to monitor any nearby sounds or conversations.

And people who use Bluetooth short-range radio to connect a hands-free headset to their cell phone can be targeted by nearby scammers using Bluetooth to eavesdrop.

Action: If you don't let your phone out of your sight and always password protect it, people can't install software on it. But, to be on the safe side, always switch the phone fully off so it can't be activated when confidentiality could be compromised.

Company: Jon Hlutke, Jonathan Hlutke
Country: USA
State: Illinois
City: Naperville

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